Alyona Alekhina, paralyzed Russian snowboarder, will not give up

Alyona Alekhina has reinvented herself as a model, singer, language tutor and brand ambassador after she was paralyzed from the waist down in a 2013 snowboarding accident.

Alyona Alekhina has reinvented herself as a model, singer, language tutor and brand ambassador after she was paralyzed from the waist down in a 2013 snowboarding accident.

Photo: (Provided Photo)

Photo: (Provided Photo)

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Alyona Alekhina has reinvented herself as a model, singer, language tutor and brand ambassador after she was paralyzed from the waist down in a 2013 snowboarding accident.

Alyona Alekhina has reinvented herself as a model, singer, language tutor and brand ambassador after she was paralyzed from the waist down in a 2013 snowboarding accident.

Photo: (Provided Photo)

Alyona Alekhina, paralyzed Russian snowboarder, will not give up

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Moscow

A petite woman on a three-wheeled electric scooter glided noiselessly through Gorky Park at dusk.

She carved graceful arabesques along the pathways and her long blonde hair fluttered in the breeze.

Lovers strolling arm and arm turned to look. Men on benches called out: "Alyona! Alyona!"

The woman stopped her scooter and posed for selfies. More strangers came by and asked to take pictures. She accepted their hugs and words of admiration with a shy smile. A few just stood in silence, transfixed, as if praying before a Russian icon.

"You are an inspiration," one whispered in Russian.

Alyona Alekhina is a celebrity in Russia — but not only for winning national championships in snowboarding, or training for the Russian Olympic team, or winning a sponsorship with Roxy, the women's fitness brand.

She's also an icon of resilience, a shining example of how to face adversity with courage and grace — and never to give up.

On April 23, 2013, at the Mammoth Mountain Ski Resort in California, Alekhina suffered a spinal cord injury during a routine snowboarding jump for a photo shoot with a team sponsored by Quiksilver. She was paralyzed from the waist down.

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"It was a totally freak accident, but I knew it was bad," she recalled. "I couldn't feel my legs and I was in a lot of pain."

She had ruptured her spleen and had other internal injuries. She was rushed on a medevac flight to a hospital in Reno, Nev. She underwent emergency surgery to stabilize the spinal cord, which was not severed. Doctors gave her a less than 5 percent chance that she would walk again.

For a pro snowboarder and aficionado of the punk music scene who seemed to be in perpetual motion — "I called her the Energizer bunny," her father said — the bottom fell out of her world.

Tpabma, they called it in Russian. The trauma. The career-ending injury would test her inner fortitude in ways she could not imagine.

She underwent years of grueling rehabilitation, experimental therapies and additional surgical procedures at leading clinics in Colorado and California in the hopes of regaining movement in her legs. Gains have been minimal, but each is a small victory. She still works at her rehab two or three hours a day.

"I really lost myself for a while," she said. "I had to create a life beyond snowboarding."

Growing up in Moscow, Alekhina was a tomboy, always trying to keep up with her older brother, Konstantin, and his friends. Brother and sister were athletic and rambunctious. Their father turned the bedroom they shared into a magical space to work off their energy, retrofitted with rope swings, ladders and a climbing wall. She had a gift for defying gravity.

At 12, she started skateboarding and pursued her passion all across Moscow, swept up in its vibrant skateboard culture. As a teenager, she got into the punk music scene and played guitar and sang. She tried to start a band. She wore her hair in dreadlocks and loved to party. She was a rebel in a conservative family and gave fits to her father, Andrey, a gas industry executive, and mother, Irina, a computer programmer.

At 17, she tried snowboarding for the first time after seeing a video about the sport. She was hooked. She was a self-taught half-pipe and slopestyle phenom who spent every waking hour perfecting her jumps and big-air moves. "I never saw anybody work so hard," her father said. "When Alyona sets her mind to something, she won't be stopped."

She willed herself into becoming a pro rider and a snowboarding champion headed to the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia. She became a vegetarian, quit drugs and alcohol and devoted herself to her sport. She got modeling contracts. The future was very bright for the multi-lingual snowboarder. She ran with a fast crowd and got engaged to a rock star, the front man of the band Yellowcard. "I was so happy. I had everything I ever wanted," she recalled. She felt blessed and prayed the night before her injury to freeze the moment. Life could not be any better than this.

The trauma forced her to create new opportunities. She moved to Huntington Beach, Calif., because she loved the sun and surf and it's where Roxy is headquartered. "Roxy has been so good to me and stuck with me throughout everything," she said. "I'll always be a Roxy girl."

Alekhina, who has a master's degree in languages, supports herself as a tutor in Russian, Spanish, French, German and English. For the past two years, my wife, Mary, who earned a master's degree in Russian from the University at Albany and studied in Russia, has been Alekhina's student. They have been doing weekly Skype tutoring sessions. The two met for the first time last week in Russia. There were hugs and tears and they got on like old friends.

"Alyona is one of the most amazing people I have ever known," my wife said.

After spending time with her in Moscow, I had to concur. She drives a Ford Focus hatchback with hand controls, her electric scooter in the back. With Alyona as our guide, we traversed urban streets, parks, restaurants, cafes, an arts center and a rooftop bar. She was frequently stopped by fans while she spoke in English and Russian, drove her scooter and incessantly swiped and tapped on her cellphone. She has 107,000 Instagram followers and works as a model and brand ambassador for watch, makeup and fashion companies. She divides her time between California and Moscow.

Alekhina just turned 30 and she continues to reinvent herself five years after the trauma. She is writing and recording songs and playing gigs at clubs in Moscow. She volunteers with a group of people who dress as clowns and Disney characters to entertain terminally ill children in Russian hospitals.

"Even at the peak of my snowboarding career, I knew there was more to the meaning of life," she said. "To be a great athlete, you have to be very selfish. I always wanted to have a more well-rounded life."

Rehab still forms the core of each day. She has recovered barely perceptible movement in her legs, but keeps pushing for more gains. She has become comfortable with being an advocate for disabled people. She knows she is lucky to be alive and never takes that for granted.

"The best people in my life are selfless," she said. "They spread love with a full heart. That's who I want to be. I choose to be happy and grateful and to make my life meaningful."

Paul Grondahl is director of the New York State Writers Institute at the University at Albany and a former Times Union reporter. He can be reached at grondahlpaul@gmail.com